The way into advertising

- Kenneth Bruun, Graphic Designer at Concept Interest

With experience from working in an advertising agency and a dream of continuing in that line of business, Kenneth Bruun applied to the Design, Technology & Business (Graphics) programme. Two years later, he left UCN - University College of Northern Denmark with his graduate certificate and could have gone straight back to his desk at Concept Interest, the advertising agency where he had held a job during the last months of his education.

“During my upper secondary education years, I worked in an advertising agency where I decorated cars, made signs and took care of different odd jobs that required craftsmanship. That is why I had no doubt that I wanted an education in graphic design and I checked out and applied to several study programmes within that discipline,” explains Kenneth.

He ended up choosing UCN - University College of Northern Denmark because his girlfriend could also start an education in Aalborg. That meant that they left Western Denmark and moved to Northern Denmark together. Apart from Kenneth’s agency experience, his background for starting on the Design, Technology & Business (Graphics) was an upper secondary education with a mathematics specialisation.

Internship led to job opportunity

My job as a Graphic Designer at the Concept Interest advertising agency began with an internship which is a compulsory part of the Design, Technology & Business (Graphics) programme. Both parties liked working together, so when the internship was over, Kenneth continued working while finishing his education.

“My boss likes the motto “Learning by Fooling Around”, so I got to plunge into tasks from day one. It is an exciting way to learn, but it requires support from the rest of the agency, and there was, right from the start,” says Kenneth, who thinks that the internship is the best way to getting a job when the education is completed. He wasn’t the only one from his class who got a job that way.

“Today I hold a Graphic Designer position, but in practise I get to work on every kind of task that you’ll find in an advertising agency. On some assignments, I only handle the graphics and on others I am in charge of the whole assignment. This means that I am the one who gets the ideas, makes plans with the customer and gets help from the others at the agency when I need their expertise in connection with the final result. This could be a copywriter for formulating clear and edgy messages, a web programmer to launch a web site or just for some extra inspiration or discussions to get my ideas on the right track,” says Kenneth.